Engagement Marketing Agency & Consultancy

In the auto industry, imitation is a very high form of flattery, and many automakers copy each other's technologies, adding just enough of their own proprietary design and unique features to keep the patent attorneys from sending the...

In short, a marketers nightmare. One needs to look at Mr Woods as a brand…a very valuable brand to the countless parade of pitchers seeking their service and being rewarded handsomely when he so much as wears a hat bearing the brand’s identity.

But what do you do with this mess now? Any backers of integrity and values would jettison Mr Woods as quickly as he moved from purported mistress to mistress. But in the infamous words of Lee Corso – “Not so fast my friend”.

Advertisers who have signed long term deals (and what a coup that seemed like at the time!) now have to look at the contract and see if it can be voided for moral transgressions. If it can’t, here is where they are at:

– Mr Woods may be the cornerstone of their ad campaign. That means the spots you’d see for the upcoming Masters have already been completed and paid for…and it means that there ain’t no backup.

– Mr Woods is scheduled for a multitude of promotional appearances, autograph signings, corporate events, etc… that bring in the big rollers.

– Mr Woods can turn around after he has fought to debunk the rumors and restore his name…and litigate for breach of contract.

– Mr Woods may be so intertwined with the various brands that he pitches that there is no way to extract and jettison him…at the risk of starting from scratch on a brand new campaign.

So…where does this leave Buick? Sitting pretty damn pretty if you ask me.

Are you feeling a little richer these days? The noose of the past year that has been around your neck (and wallet) starting to loosen? Well, apparently it is because we all have alot more wealth these days.

According to a report by Bob Willis today in Bloomberg, the household net worth in the United States increased by $2 trillion in the second quarter. $2 trillion! That’s a huge increase in the face of continued decline in employment, a deterioration of housing values, and the continued malaise of the recession. So to what do we owe this huge appreciation in wealth to?

Looked at your investment account lately? The Dow Jones Industrial Average is flirting with 10,000 again. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index, which showed the biggest quarterly gain since 1998 in the second quarter, has continued to climb since June 30. The gauge closed down 0.3 percent at 1,065.49 today in New York, retreating for just the second time in 10 days.

We are on the road to recovery. It may be a rocky one but we are back on track and making our way out of the forest.

A positive behavior that has emerged from the downturn is that consumers have less debt and more tucked away in savings…which will make our recovery a sharp one as more consumers are able to spend and assume debt again (hopefully at much lower levels than before).

40% growth rate in China this year! GM is taking that to the bank. To date, over 1.1 million GM vehicles have been sold in China. And according to China Daily, the party might just be getting started for all automotive manufacturers. Consider that car ownership is just 2.9 percent of the population – one of the lowest rates in the world – says Credit Suisse, which expects ownership to surge fivefold in the next decadeto reach 148 cars per 1,000 residents by 2020. Credit Suisse estimates that 40 percent of urban households in China can afford a medium-priced car if auto financing is available, and 90 percent of rural households can afford the cheapest cars on the market. Mind boggling potential when one considers that the population is over 1 billion people.

As it is already, the Chinese market is expected to top out at 11.8 million sales, the highest in the world and some 1 million more than the U.S. market. However, the profit margins are generally slim as the majority of new vehicles are small and inexpensive. It may be a volume game for manufacturers for a long while until Chinese personal incomes advance from the $5000 – $65000/annual right now (and that is in the urban areas).

Have you noticed that the traffic jams seem a little easier to bear, that the number of vehicles on the road seems a little lighter these days and that there is a little more room to make that 4-lane swerve to get off the exit you just passed (no one does that right?).

It’s not your imagination. In a report by INRIX, a leading provider of traffic and navigation services in the United States, gridlock in the U.S. reached it’s low point in the second quarter of 2009…but has begun to rise due to the (slight) economic recovery. “Traffic congestion across the country is rising due to signs of economic recovery, initial rollouts of highway construction projects funded by federal stimulus packages, and lower fuel prices. In fact, 64 of the top 100 most populated cities in the U.S. experienced increases in traffic congestion levels in early 2009.”

Kinda liked having the top end perimeter here in Atlanta all to myself the past 8 months…